SACRAMENTO — A last-ditch attempt to put the largest bond measure in California history on the June ballot faltered Monday after the Senate’s leader cited several problems with the bill and the Assembly canceled a scheduled vote.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and a key legislative leader said lawmakers would try again today, which would be five days past the deadline set by the secretary of state.

“Obviously, I’m less optimistic than I was four or five hours ago, but that’s how these things go,” Assembly Speaker Fabian Nez, D-Los Angeles, said after emerging from the governor’s office late Monday.

He and a spokeswoman for the administration said all sides would try one final time to get a public works measure on the June 6 primary election ballot.

“We’re not going to give up,” Nez said on the Assembly floor. “We’re going to keep working hard to find common ground … because we believe that ultimately we have an obligation to our constituents to deliver tangible results.”

Earlier in the day, Assembly Democrats said they were close to a deal after a weekend of talks between the Republican governor and some legislative leaders. But the Assembly repeatedly delayed a meeting that originally was scheduled to take place Monday morning, eventually convening Monday night for a brief time. Nez said he had wanted to bring the package of bond measures to a vote, but decided against it after meeting with the governor and other legislative leaders.

Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata released copies of a nearly three-page memo to his caucus saying there were “a number of problems” with the bond bill awaiting action by the Assembly.

A spokeswoman for the Senate leader, Alicia Dlugosh, said Perata had left for the day and that there was “no chance” the Senate would take up the bill Monday night, even if it passed the Assembly.

“He said he would caucus with members Tuesday, and we’ll go from there,” Dlugosh said.

Late Monday, the top legislative leaders from both parties, including Perata, were meeting with Schwarzenegger.

The governor’s spokeswoman, Margita Thompson, described it as a “low-key” discussion, saying the five were trying to decide how to move forward.

“If the deal gets done by (today), the printer still has the ability to deliver the ballots to voters by mid-May,” Thompson said.

Debate over a massive public works plan has dominated the legislative session since Schwarzenegger proposed a $222.6 billion spending plan during his state of the state address in January. His 10-year plan relied on $68 billion in voter-approved bonds to help pay for expanding highways, upgrading levees and building new schools, prisons, reservoirs, jails and courthouses.

He has been trying to work out a compromise with lawmakers in time to place a bond measure on the June primary ballot, a possibility that seems increasingly remote.

The Senate voted down a $48.8 billion proposal early Saturday. On Monday, the Assembly was considering a $49.3 billion plan that represented a compromise between Schwarzenegger and Assembly leaders.

It included $40.2 billion in bonds to go on a ballot this year and $9.1 billion in education bonds for the 2008 election, said Steve Maviglio, spokesman for Nez.

Perata criticized that plan on a number of levels. Among other problems, he said the legislation contained too many dams for new reservoirs and not enough environmental protections.

The bill would authorize funding for two dams in Northern California at the insistence of Republicans, according to Perata’s staff analysis.

The Senate Democrat plan rejected on a party-line vote early Saturday included money for a single Southern California water-storage project, rebuilding Perris Dam in Riverside County.

Schwarzenegger and Republicans also inserted what Perata called “major new exemptions from the state’s basic environmental protection law” that in some cases “effectively provides state bureaucrats with a ‘blank check’ on the environment.”

He also objected that too much tax money would go to subsidize flood protection and said farmers and other large water users should bear more of the financial burden.

The Assembly plan did not included enough money for parks, Northern California highways and mass transit systems outside of Los Angeles, Perata said in his memo.

Assembly Budget Committee chairman John Laird, D-Santa Cruz, said the new proposal included some additional funding for reservoirs and “a little something” to scale back environmental reviews.

“But it’s not the wholesale thing (Republicans) wanted,” he added.

Schwarzenegger and some legislative leaders talked over the weekend to try to keep hopes for an agreement alive.

Friday was supposed to be the cutoff date for the Legislature to put measures on the June 6 ballot. Secretary of state spokeswoman Nghia Nguyen Demovic said the office was trying to work out details that would allow lawmakers to add something to the ballot Monday, although that possibility appeared unlikely.

Election officials need time to put the bond proposals on public display, solicit pro and con arguments for voter pamphlets, print those pamphlets and mail them to 12 million households by May 16, in addition to overseas voters.

Schwarzenegger made fixing the state’s aging infrastructure, most of which was built during the 1950s and 1960s, his main issue for 2006 after voters shot down all four of the special election initiatives he campaigned for last fall.

The Republican governor initially asked for $68 billion in bonds to help pay for his proposal, then later sought an additional $3.5 billion in bond funds for flood control.

Democrats countered with an offer to approve about $35 billion in bonds, saying the governor’s plan would saddle the state with too much debt. They also wanted funding for some items that were not in the governor’s proposal, including parks and affordable housing.

The two sides agreed to compromise on the amount of bonds they would ask voters to approve. Schwarzenegger also agreed to drop funding for prisons, jails and courthouses and add money for parks, natural resource programs, housing and transit.

The sides have stumbled on other provisions, however, leading to Friday’s missed deadline and Monday’s last-minute talks.

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